My Gramma was an amazing woman.  She was a crafter extraordinaire, she could make anything you could possibly dream of (including the most delicious crepes you can possibly imagine!)  She was a knitter, she crocheted, she was a seamstress, a potter.  She knew how to cross stitch, embroider, weave.  You name it, she could do it, and if she wanted to do it, but didn’t know how?  She would get a book and learn how to do it.

Now that she’s been gone for a few years, I find myself wishing that I had have asked her more questions.  In fact, just a few weeks ago, I was trying to figure out how to sew pleats on a costume for a friend of mine… knowing that there must be some simpler way to do it than the way I was doing it.  I had the fleeting thought, “Oh, I’ll just give Gramma a call… she’ll know!”

While my Gramma taught me a lot of things, and I mean a lot, she did not teach me embroidery.  My mom used to cross stitch, and I know how to do that (my mom taught me), it was never really and truly an interest at the time.  Which means that I never asked her about it.  Which means that now that she’s gone, I’m in the place of figuring it out myself.

The internet is truly a wonderful thing.  You can google pretty much anything.  The internet, however, does not watch you as you make those first few stitches… it does not put it’s hand on yours to guide you through the faltering routine until you pick up the rhythm on your own.

Last weekend the kids and I set out to learn how to embroider.  I did have a very basic knowledge, years of watching my mom cross stitch was still stuck in the back of my brain…

It’s interesting, I thought that the hooligans, mine and Rachel’s, aged from 3 to (almost) 8, would fiddle around and play with it a bit, lose interest, and go do what hooligans do… in our house that means doing their level best to drive me insane.

They amazed me.  Not only were they patient waiting for their turn to have needles threaded, they stuck with the project for hours.  Literally, hours.

It’s amazing how you can give a child a challenge, offer no expectations and just leave them to it, what they will accomplish! They each decided on their own designs, and we simply drew it on the muslin (for the older girls) mesh fabric (for the younger kids). They chose their own colours, I gave a brief tutorial on back stitching, promised that I would thread all needles, and they were off!

A brief interlude to watch a movie (embroidering all the time), a small break to eat dinner, and they persevered until it was time for bed.

I simply can’t believe how much fun they had doing such a simple thing! An art that has been around for thousands of years. The simple act of taking needle and thread to draw on fabric.

And while those first halting stitches are secured on the fabric, while we listen, while we calm to make them smaller and neater, they are learning an art. They are learning to persevere. They are learning the joy that comes with making something from your own two hands. They are learning patience. They are learning that while they are small, they are very very capable. They are learning a craft that they can pass down to their own children one day.

Last weekend was not just about learning to embroider. It was so very much more than that.

There’s something about a finished project. There’s something about the satisfaction of seeing something that you’ve started with yarn and a few sticks, and it becomes completely functional and beautiful.

I’ve been working on the Pinwheel Sweater for a while now… and by working on, I mean that I started it, was completely enchanted by the pattern, and especially by the yarn (it’s absolutely mesmerizing to watch the colour change in Uberknits gradient yarn!), got to the outer edge, cast off, and put it in the knitting basket for months.

Why would I do that if it was so enchanting? So beguiling? (gee, can I think up any more descriptive words??) It’s because I got to the sleeves, I knew that I would have to count, pick up stitches, keep track of rows. Be bored be the tedious K1 P1 ribbing for 8 solid inches on EACH arm.

But, I finally did it. I picked it up, carefully undid the alternate arm hole, used my sweet knitpicks needles to count off the rows until the decreases. Knit 16 solid inches of K1 P1 ribbing. Counted rows to make sure the sleeves and trim were both the same length.

It was so worth it. My very first sweater. I’ve knit probably 100 pairs of pants, but never done a sweater. It was glorious to finally put it on her, see that it fit, feel the joy of the blocking.

Oh yah. I’ll totally be doing this again.

There's something about a finished project.  There's something about the satisfaction of seeing something that you've started with yarn and a few sticks, and it becomes completely functional and beautiful.

I've been working on the Pinwheel Sweater for a while now…  and by working on, I mean that I started it, was completely enchanted by the pattern, and especially by the yarn (it's absolutely mesmerizing to watch the colour change in Uberknits gradient yarn!), got to the outer edge, cast off, and put it in the knitting basket for months.

Why would I do that if it was so enchanting?  So beguiling?  (gee, can I think up any more descriptive words??)  It's because I got to the sleeves, I knew that I would have to count, pick up stitches, keep track of rows.  Be bored be the tedious K1 P1 ribbing for 8 solid inches on EACH arm. 

<

But, I finally did it.  I picked it up, carefully undid the alternate arm hole, used my sweet knitpicks needles to count off the rows until the decreases.  Knit 16 solid inches of K1 P1 ribbing.  Counted rows to make sure the sleeves and trim were both the same length.

<

It was so worth it.  My very first sweater.  I've knit probably 100 pairs of pants, but never done a sweater.  It was glorious to finally put it on her, see that it fit, feel the joy of the blocking.

Oh yah.  I'll totally be doing this again.

Oh my my my.  I did something amazing this weekend.  I jumped out of my comfort box, scootched up to Toronto and listened to everone's favourite knitter, the Yarn Harlot. 

Allyson and I drove up Friday afternoon, picked up Amanda, and scootched on the lovely TTC for the Canadian Launch of Stephanie Pearl-Macphee's new book.

The talk was great.  Stephanie is so funny, and very tiny in person.  Much prettier than in pictures too.

I have so much that I want to say about the weekend, but I'm not yet quite sure how to put it into words.  Let's try some pictures, shall we?

Here we are, first in line to get our book signed…  Stephanie graciously insisted that people with babies either inside their bodies or outside their bodies got to go first.  Of course there was more interest in Talya than in me!

With the famous needles and socks in hand, Talya is DESTINED to be a great knitter.  She grabbed right onto those things, and didn't try to put them in her mouth…  at least not right away!  I don't think I was too terribly dorky (Stephanie will probably disagree….) although I was very nervous.

She is really the most lovely person.  So real and down to earth.  I can completely understand why her blog gets thousands of hits a day, and why her books are on the best seller list.  It isn't just that she's a good writer, but she is a fabulous friendly person as well.  Stephanie made sure to talk to everyone as they went through the line.  It wasn't just a sign the book and move on kind of thing.

There were large amounts of knitters all gathered in Indigo books.  Knitting, chatting, having a great time.  It's amazing this community of Knitters.  One thing that we have in common and we all get along.  I think that there would be peace in the world if everyone knew how to knit.

Yesterday, Saturday, 20 of us met for a good old fashioned Yarn Crawl.  The Yarn Shoppes in Toronto??  Oh my goodness.  I would consider moving there just for the shops.

Here we are at Lettuce Knit.  By far my favourite shoppe.  A tiny little place, but so cute, and the people there were amazing.  I got my big purchases of the day here…  my goal was accomplished here…  my drop spindle and fleece.

We had lunch while we were here in Kensington Square (?) and compared stashes while we waited for our Big Fat Burritos.

I think one of the funniest things was the “class photos” we did at every yarn shoppe we stopped at.

Stephanie would have to wait for a red light or for the traffic to clear to be able to take the shot…  See how close she is to the street car tracks there?  Yah.  At every shoppe it was like that!

I have so much more to say about this weekend, but I think I need to let the rest of it sink in for a while.  I really do feel like it was a once in a lifetime thing, and I am so glad that I did.  The baby was fabulous.  Hauled around in the sling for ten hours, and she was content as could be.  It was amazing.

I think the best part was that the weekend was all about me.  It was all about me and something that I love to do with people in who also love to do it.  It was nice to not have to explain what the deal is with this string thing.  It was awesome to have people not look at you funny for touching every single ball of wool in a store.  It was amazing to have people nod in complete understanding when you would exclaim that a skein was good enough to eat.

More later on the weekend, but I will leave you with this egg popping (heh heh heh) picture of Talya in a hat from AlterKnits, our last stop on the crawl.

Knitter out.

I was whining about the futility of doing housework to an online
knitting friend of mine, and this is what she wisely responded….